英文摘要 |
The paper examines some of the problems related to the literature and religion in China at the end of the Six Dynasties Period (222-589). We consider the values and characteristics of medieval religious discourse in the Six Dynasties China and their interaction with the literary tradition of the time. In particular, I will undertake an analysis of the first known collection of Chinese Buddhist nuns` biographies, Lives of the Nuns (Biqiuni zhuan), (edited in 516 CE) by the monk Baochang (fl. 495-516), and compare these biographies to hagiographical stories about nuns taken from the collection Classified excerpts from the Sutra and Vinaya Pitakas (Jinglü yixiang), also compiled by Baochang. While the first collection pertains strictly to the zhuanji genre in the Chinese literary tradition, the second one is part of an anthology of Indian Buddhist tales from the Buddhist canon. Through the comparison, I demonstrate that, while the Biqiuni zhuan borders between the “biographical” and the “hagiographical”, the tales from the sutras belong to the hagiographical end of the continuum while also incorporating characteristics from the tales of enlightenment. This point will be further justified by an analysis of elements pertaining to the formal (chronological) order of the texts and their overall structures, which are informed by conceptual differences. Ultimately, through literary analysis, the paper will focus on issues concerning Chinese women in medieval Buddhism, some questions on their ordination and vinaya regulations, and the relatedness of these issues to the situation of Indian nuns from the time of the Buddha. |